Guild Wars 2

Well given that they have a job, they have to be getting payment.

They’re going to be paid the same whether the line they’re saying is the same as what the other actors are saying, or is different.

They’re not recording any extra lines from the individual voice actor’s perspective – and even then, unlike the CoE announcer voice actors don’t get paid by the word (I believe they get paid by either the session, or the project, depending on contract).

Sir Flesh Wound, the player characters’ voice actors are already paid. There is no “additional cost and time” added to the budget if the only thing was separating lines for race or gender.

The additional cost would be if NPCs change responses to the player’s race/gender differences, however. This can easily be avoided, however, as proven by Bioware quite frequently.

The only real extra work falls onto the writers, who’d have to make up multiple variations.

Now, if you were to have different lines based on profession, order, biography, or even personality (still a system in the game, though it’s now hidden), then it’d be extra cost for the voice actors – but not by an overall large amount.

JTGuevara.9018:

It’s been established that killing elder dragons destabilizes Tyria. So Taimi invents a machine to “pit Jormag and Primordus’ energies against each other”. But here’s the thing, doesn’t that just make things WORSE?

The entire episode has Taimi wailing in self-pity over the whole “why didn’t I think to see what would happen if we killed them!?”

She explains during your hunt for the Elder Druids’ protection that she (and everyone in general who is part of the fight against the Elder Dragons) knew that their deaths results in magic being released in to Tyria and that it’s not so good. However, she also states that everyone figured we could just fix the environment after killing the Elder Dragons – “one problem at a time” kind of thing, that killing the Elder Dragons would be not so good, but still the better alternative to letting them rampage.

Her recent simulation, however, proved that line of thought to be wrong, that killing just one more Elder Dragon will put Tyria past the tipping point.

JTGuevara.9018:

You have two dragons that are AWAKE and FIGHTING. That clash of magic is going to rock Tyria even further. A dragon that is merely just awake means that magic in Tyria is already out of balance.

Wrong on all three accounts. Firstly, Primordus and Jormag had been awake for over 150 years (200 years for Primordus). Secondly, them being awake doesn’t mean “magic in Tyria is out of balance” – the Elder Dragons simply wake when there’s a lot of magic in the world. But “a lot of magic” is not the same as “out of balance”, and even then the Elder Dragons do not intend to balance magic – their balancing of magic is merely a side effect of their very hostile and evil actions.

Thirdy, the plan was not to have Primordus and Jormag fight each other, nor were they fighting, but to use their their magic against each other – which would be (theoretically, debunked now in Episode 5) far less dangerous to Tyria.

JTGuevara.9018:

So, I guess it’s thanks to Taimi’s shenanigans that the freakin’ human GOD OF WAR haphazardly made his debut and bailed out her little behind by absorbing the impact of the clashing energies of Primordus and Jormag and putting them to sleep.

Balthazar’s actions actually would have killed Primordus and Jormag. The reason they went to sleep wasn’t because Balthazar absorbed magic, but because we stopped Balthazar by destroying the machine. But enough damage had been done to Primordus that its energy had “subsided to pre-awakening level” (we do not know if Jormag suffered the same fate, I’m doubtful as the final burst of energy to hit an Elder Dragon, which destroyed the machine after it overloaded and put Primordus to sleep, was Jormag’s, so Jormag didn’t get as much Primordus power as Primordus had gotten of Jormag power).

I also want to note that had it not been for Balthazar, Taimi would have tested her machine on small minions to see what the result was. That result would more than likely have been “small scale explosion” and would in turn make Taimi run the simulation she ran due to Balthazar stealing the machine.

So Balthazar had in the end made matters worse the entire time, never helped matters. Though had he not done such, then both Elder Dragons would be active still.

Fluffball.8307:

The human gods ruling the mists seems a bit far fetched. When you account for all the human propaganda, we don’t actually know that much about the gods. We don’t really know enough about the mists and EA and so on to speculate on how things work; I think that’s what the next expac is going to delve into.

The mursaat probably know 10 times as much about the gods and the mists than we do.

I never said they rule the Mists. I said they rule the center of the multiverse – or to be more specific The Rift And you cannot really say they don’t at least have influence there, since the Hall of Heroes houses statues of five of the gods, before Kormir’s rise and after Abaddon’s fall.

And I find it highly unlikely that the mursaat know more – let alone ten times more – about the Mists than the Six Gods, given that the Six Gods had been traveling the Mists prior to and far longer than the mursaat had.

Sykper.6583:

Thinking on it more, why would the six not take action against the Elders way sooner? Certainly the Gods knew the Dragons existed even prior to leaving. There’s probably some natural force at work that we, as player characters, are unraveling by killing them off, contrary to the six gods who saw that killing the Elder Dragons would be to their disadvantage.

Here’s a question: Why should the Six take any action against the Elder Dragons?

Maybe they knew the consequences of killing the Elder Dragons without proper replacements, and such things did not exist? Maybe they had overestimated the amount of time the Elder Dragons would be asleep, intending to take action against them before they woke but they woke much sooner than expected? Maybe they just didn’t care, after all they left the world over a thousand years before the Elder Dragons began to wake up.

Sykper.6583:

I know it’s a bit outside of this thread, but I have a firm belief that a different God (Lyssa or Kormir) will reveal themselves and tell us of why Balt is behaving in this manner, why the Elder Dragons shouldn’t just be killed, and that will lead us into the next story arc.

…At least that is what NEEDS to happen in order to cope with the recent reveal.

We need that revealed, yes, but not by another god. Balthazar can do it, or something else – like an avatar.

We’ll see if it does. Of course, if Balthazar’s actions and why we shouldn’t kill the Elder Dragons isn’t explained, then his actions this entire season would really just be a dues ex machina of sorts – not full out, but close enough to be as bad of a narrative.

Balthazar hadn’t exactly accomplished much either. How many wars did he win, again?

Couldn’t even beat his non-divine half-brother.

moonstarmac.4603:

Got to remember…Zinn DID make 6 very powerful Golems…4 of which attempted to assassinate important people. MOX was the only one that was rational…GOX was just…well…“I can be mon-goose dog” if you talk to GOX 2.0. He wasn’t much smarter in GW1.

In fact, he was banished forever from Asuran society…Blimm willingly joined him during the War in Kryta, but stayed behind to help work with Kryta afterwards. He is buried in the Divinity’s Reach Catacombs.

He made 4 fancy golems (I wouldn’t call G.O.X. fancy), two he was forced to make at proverbial gunpoint and one was the one pointing that gun. Only 3 were sent as assassins. By Joko apparently.

Coldtart.4785:

In the wardbough event the druids just attack the npcs out of nowhere and then blame you and the npcs for being intruders even after the npc leader says we meant no harm. They can all go die for all I care.

If you do The Druid Stone backpack achievement chain, you eventually find out that the Wardbough had turned evil due to malevolent energies that have recently permeated the area.

In other words, Primordus’, Balthazar’s, the mercenaries, and the Vigil’s presence have resulted in kittening the minds of the druids.

The Wardbough and the Angry Nature Spirits are exceptions, not the rule. Most druids are more amiable, like those we talk with.

armaduras.8972:

Zinn is an unbeliever in Balthazar. His life was short, his achievements are dust and his memory is that of a swindler and bully. He won’t be missed. Balthazar be praised!

Zinn’s life was actually very long. He was an renowned golemancer already in 1078 AE, and he died in 1175 AE. That’s almost 100 years later.

And exceptional asuran lifespans are only 120. So he had to be in his young twenties / late teens by GW1 in order to live so long.

So chances are strong he would have died within a decade by natural causes anyways.

Given the context and phrasing, that remark doesn’t really sound like the gods are afraid of the Elder Dragons to me, but rather that the only thing established in the game series that they might be afraid of is the Elder Dragons.

Though I fail to see why gods capable of altering the landscape of Tyria while trapped in the heart of another dimension while imprisoned and weakened, who rule/have influence over the very center of the multiverse, could possibly be afraid of beings only capable of altering the immediate area surrounding themselves and their minions and are very much limited to just Tyria.

Amaimon.7823:

Wasn’t it the third war were Doric asked the gods to seal the magic again?
Maybe I’m confusing something up now.
yes, they don’t have a name, but they’re simply called the first, the second and the third, and the third was also called the great guild wars because it made the first and second look like high school bully-fights

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls#The_Guild_Wars
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/First_Guild_War
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Second_Guild_War
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Third_Guild_War

The Guild Wars have a name… Collectively, they’re called “Guild Wars”. Individually, they’re called First Guild War, Second Guild War, and Third Guild War.

The war about magic, which happened in 1 BE to Year 0, did not have a name.

The First Guild War happened over 100 years after Year 0. The Third Guild War began in 1013 AE and ended in 1070 AE, with the Searing. The Third Guild War was never called “Great Guild War”, but in GW1 was the one people referred to when just saying “the Guild War”, since it was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Amaimon.7823:

After the Great Guild War (the third of the three) the gods permanently left Tyria because they thought their meddling and presence was causing all the war and ravaging.

Uhm, wow, no. All three Guild Wars had occurred after (and partially because) the gods left the world.

The war over magic was never given a name. The first Guild War happened because guilds, having gained influence in the politics of continental Tyria, went into conflict over control of the bloodstones.

But yeah, they were never said to be dead, and they left the world quite physically over a thousand years. That’s a long time for gods wanting peace or honorable combat to be acting behind the shadows. Especially for a god like Grenth who is all about removing veils and pretensions.

And doubly so when we’re explicitly told by developers that they left the world. When ArenaNet has twisting plans they just refuse to answer, rather than straight up lying about it.

Amaimon.7823:

And they still answered prayers until this day (although less and less every year).

They ceased communications – prayers included – around GW1’s time. They don’t answer anymore.

Even the druids, the most devout of Melandru, had lost contact with her at that time.

Amaimon.7823:

Now we learn that their magic is waning,

Only Balthazar’s, nothing says anything about the strengths or weaknesses of the other gods.

Ardid.7203:

Totally personal opinion:

Typical D&D Dragons bore me to death. GW2 Dragons are closer to Lovecraftian ancient gods, which I like much more.
Classic demons are even more cliche and boring than normal dragons. And common Angels? GOD, please save me of that dull stereotype.

I would HATE for GW2 to go that overused, maniqueistic, excedingly unimaginative way. Really, please don’t do it. Balthazar gimmicks are already bad enough.

HOWEVER. Angels and Demons can also be done right. It requires a lot of creativity, raw talent and the willingness to not respond to the easier to use and sell stereotypes. There are some precious few examples out there …

Angels and demons in the Guild Wars setting are very, very different from your traditional Christianity depictions.

Demons are literally just “beings created directly from the Mists themselves” and though they have a tendency to be malicious and evil they are not always so, and while they have a tendency to be twisted, sometimes insideout, or insectoid mockeries of living beings they not always are.

It should be noted that Imps seen throughout GW2 are technically demons.

Angels, conversely, are the followers of Dwayna best we know. We only have one potential example of their looks though Elonian legends claim that harpies are fallen servants of Dwayna (effectively making them fallen angels).

Going off of this, the original plot seemed to be followers of Dwayna/the gods waging war against malicious creatures of the Mists that made it into Tyria. Dunno how “judging Tyrians” come into play there though. But that was largely the plot of GW1 – us fighting demons and fallen gods as well.

With Balthazar’s return, we might see a plot akin to that but I am doubtful for now.

@Inc: Yes, that is the dialogue I was referring to quite specifically.
She is fairly confident in saying that the gods are “not into the Mists, that’s for certain.” and she has pulled souls from the Underworld.
I think those souls would know the relative state of the Underworld and could relay it to us.

Vesuvius.9874:

Fair point but I’m stressing it because I noticed a pattern of maps being brought into the game. So if the pattern holds up, we see FoW. If it doesn’t, then I guess the pattern ends there and I was wrong. However, I’m still convinced we’ll see FoW for reasons below.

Honestly there’s not much of a pattern.

We’ve seen four maps in the dat that never made it into game. Of those, one was confirmed to be a “practice map” (FoW map), one was was “scrapped and replaced because too much underwater content and it’s a pain getting one map to ‘wrap around’ another” (Lake Doric), and the other two (one at D’Alessio Seaboard, the other presumably a WvW map) have no hint of ever returning even in a replaced format.

I’d like to stress we were told of more scrapped maps that never got as far as the D’Alessio Seaboard one – including one that was south of Mount Maelstrom and one that was west of the path in Sparkfly Fen (“technically” replaced by Southsun Cove but only in location).

There is no real pattern here because of the two things returned, one of them was technically always in the game but never used (kind of like that long jumping puzzle in Caledon), and on top of that there are probably dozen maps that were scrapped for development time that have yet to return (we only know of four).

Vesuvius.9874:

I disagree. Humanity has had access to at least two of the gods’ realms for a number of years and not once did we come across them in their own realms. So we can’t definitively say whether he has or hasn’t been to his own realm in 250 years.

An individual who is clearly capable of pulling souls from the Mists and have done so more than the one time we saw her do so (as she has experience in doing so and knows that doing so would attract hostile attention) outright tells us that the gods are “Not into the Mists, that’s for certain.”

If the foremost priestess of Grenth pulled a soul from the Underworld, what would be among the first questions asked the first time done so? Probably “is Grenth there?” or “what is the state of the Underworld?”

Disagree if you want, but you’re disagreeing with our sole source of canon lore, and an actual reliable narrator as she’s an expert in the field.

Vesuvius.9874:

The likeliest outcome is we learn that Balthazar gathered more power to fend off Menzies who somehow got the upper hand in their war and took over FoW.

And whether or not Balthazar had been in the Fissure of Woe for the past 250 years is not confirmed by him losing it. Nor is there any reason to believe Menzies would remain in his conquered area rather than making his old area his throne of power (still) – if he’s a god now, why couldn’t he?

Best to seat yourself in a known land, rather than a land known by your still alive enemy. Menzies is treacherous, not idiotic.

This is, of course, assuming that the war remained in/around the Fissure of Woe and didn’t move on to whatever world beyond The Mists that the gods went.

Vesuvius.9874:

So in an effort to save Tyria and return this crazy god back to where he came from, we will have to investigate what caused Balthazar to lose his powers. That to me sounds like a good enough reason to go to FoW.

Or… do something far easier and pull a soul from the Fissure of Woe and ask.

Something they’ve probably done in the past 250 years given that the humans of Tyrians have the full capability of doing so.

You got your order wrong. The TL;DR order of events is:

• Over centuries, the gods released magic (insert word because silly censor is silly) little by little
• Abaddon, with agreement of all other gods, released a ton of magic, including unique magic to different groups
• Wars of greed ensured
• Doric pleaded with the gods in Arah
• Other gods revoked magic, drew magic from Zhaitan to empower the Bloodstone, and split it
• Margonites rioted in Temple of the Six
• Forgotten overplayed the police act and began genocide
• Jadoth prayed to Abaddon for salvation
• Abaddon, after hesitation, saved remaining Margonites by wiping out Forgotten Armada
• Abaddon then began to turn human Margonites into demonic Margonites and planned assault on Gates of Heaven to turn Tyria into his personal kingdom of one god
• Other Five Gods saw this and went “no way jose” and fought Abaddon; though Abaddon could / did defeat two gods on his own, all five overpowered him, he lost his (most of?) his body and what remained was shackled in the heart of the Realm of Torment, beneath a perpetual waterfall of pain and anguish, and locked behind seven gates.

I think it already has. There was plenty of backlash over the lack of a “proper epilogue” to Heart of Thorns (something comparable to the party in Fort Trinity), mind you this kind of got drowned out by the backlash of the lack of overall content, but if they do that again…

There wasn’t so much of a backlash over Season 2’s massively cliffhanger ending (though there was some), but I have seen some annoyance over not “getting the full story” when they bought Heart of Thorns (some of this is towards Season 1 being MIA, but some is also towards Season 2 being the first half of the Mordremoth arc that is bought separate while the Zhaitan arc is bundled in).

Maybe.

But the existence of the map in the dat files is by far not even an inkling of reason to believe we’d go to the Fissure of Woe. Unlike the Caudecus face dungeon, which was even in the game since release as it was part of the dungeon’s actual zone.

Though I’m doubtful we’ll go to the Fissure of Woe at all. Based on lore, humans had been looking for the gods, and their realms would have been among the first they’d look – we know they have some tenuous access to the realms still, as we see Priestess Rhie pull a soul from the Underworld during the human storyline.

This would mean that Balthazar hadn’t been to his own realm in 250 years, so why would we bother going there now just because he returned to Tyria as less than a god?

Dirame.8521:

It makes sense to me. Especially if you assume that the reason the gods of tyria left is because the dragons were waking up. Then, having the dragons be the ones “dimming his light” is quite plausible.

There’s no point in assuming since we had direct confirmation that the gods left Tyria not because of the dragons, but because of Abaddon.

Besides, they left over a thousand years before the dragons even began to stir.

Those destroyers died long before Primordus went to sleep (if he did – subsiding to pre-awakening levels could just mean he’s stupidly weak now but still awake).

The Greyhawk.9107:

Here’s one thing to keep in mind when considering who weakened Balthazar….he said “They”. As in plural.

Not necessarily. “They” is often used to refer to a gender neutral individual – as it is more polite than saying “it” in the English language, as “it” is too often used to refer to an object and you know us Americanos and their objectivity fetish.

Many folks do use “he” or “her” instead (“he” being more often due to patriarchal society), so it’s a less common version of referring to an individual, but using “they” and “them” can be and is used to refer to an individual when one doesn’t want to give away gender (or does not know gender).

Vesuvius.9874:

Fissure of Woe is coming to the game. Whether as an explorable map or more likely as a raid. A while back WoodenPotatoes did a series on Tyria 3D which took a look at exploring some of the inaccessible maps.

That map had actually been confirmed to just be a once-QA-now-developer toying around with the tools. This is why the map has so many Orrian assets and even uses the old dead-Zhaitan model.

This map was also why she (iirc the QA worker then was a she, though I don’t recall the name) was made into a dev, because it was so well done.

That map, unlike the Caudecus face dungeon, has no bearing on intended use. While that was made long before Episode 4 (or even Season 3), it was always planned that we would fight Caudecus. There’s probably a good chance that they intended us to kill Caudecus in the CM dungeon – like we did with Kudu and Gaheron – but they opted against it and thus that face dungeon was left unused for years.

Goldfox.5729:

And if yes; then could it back up some of the earlier theories about Abaddon and why he gifted magic to humans? Could it perhaps explain his motivations to release it, and reasons to become angered when the other Five Gods took it away?

I fail to see how releasing magic would assist in the situation of then sleeping dragons (who would have remained asleep much longer without that magic).

Furthermore, we have been told that Abaddon’s rebellion isn’t caused by any one thing. Even the revoking of magic wasn’t the final tipping point for Abaddon (the final tipping point was the slaughter of then-human Margonites, devout followers of Abaddon who had desecrated statues of the other gods in the Temple of the Six and in turn were being slaughtered by the Forgotten; and even that wasn’t an instantaneous “oh now I’m mad” but a moment of contemplation as it was happening)

Goldfox.5729:

Another thing I would like to add to this post, but which isn’t much related to the above, is that I have a certain feeling that the Six Gods arrived on Tyria much like a blank paper. They were magically adept beings who were drawn by the magic on Tyria which seeped out from the Elder Dragons, but upon arrival they had a different and not as prominent identity as we believe them to have now.
It was only when they began to consume the magic from the Elder Dragons that their forms began to shape to the vision of the source, combined with traits still lingering from their original state, which makes us unable to make a 100% connection between Elder Dragons and the Gods.

Except that it’s outright stated they arrived as gods, with the names and personalities they have always been shown to have, and even Abaddon had a predecessor god while being from beyond the Mists?

There is, furthermore, no relation between the gods and dragons. While fallen Balthazar has shown capability of absorbing magic, and we know the gods knew of the dragons, and the gods drew power from Zhaitan to empower the Bloodstone when they divided it, there is no further relation beyond these indirect ties.

And if this is another attempt to tie them 1:1 together, well that’s a dead horse that’s been thoroughly beaten – works for the first half relatively well, but the second half is impossible to properly line up.

As far as I know, nothing links Deimos to Abaddon. Yes, Deimos is a demon, but not all demons were allied with Abaddon in the first place (and even then, it was an alliance with, not being followers or subjects of Abaddon; much like the case of Dhuum and Menzies).

And Deimos has a symbol?

I also don’t think Rytlock is blind. When you create a revenant, there’s lore stated on the blindfold – basically “blinding oneself” via use of a blindfold gives revenants (and ritualists for that matter) a better capability of seeing ties to the Mists while in Tyria.

Anyways, it’s pretty clear that just like Season 2, Season 3 is just an “incomplete story”. Hell, even Heart of Thorns was. There hadn’t been a complete plot since Season 1.

It is canon. It’s even a plot point in CoF explorable.

There’s no stated explanation for it in lore, though we do know the developer reasoning (tl;dr “it cheapens plot deaths”).

There are two major theories for why it happened. Either Dhuum defeated Grenth slash Dhuum’s return (without defeating Grenth yet) negated, revoked, or otherwise prevents Grenth allowing resurrection. Or Grenth (and the other gods) simply ceasing communication also involves ceasing such allowances with their realms.

Ngeluz.4860:

This is just speculation but if a God can absorb the power of a Elder Dragon That could mean either Grenth or Dhuum absorb a portion of Zhaitan power…

If it was Dhuum, that would explain “Shadow Behemoth” and all the shadow creatures out in the world torturing spirits etc. Honestly I like a Zhaitan Meta like in Dragon Stand “Mordy” but in Orr… Man that dragon looks too good to be lock dead behind old content especially now with so much stuff happening in living world story!

Dhuum slash Grenth would have had to be in Tyria upon Zhaitan’s death. But we already got canon fact that Zhaitan’s power had spread throughout the world, it wasn’t absorbed by any singular other being.

We know Tequatl absorbed some of that power. Taimi speculates that Mordremoth did. And we know Primordus did. But most seemed to have gone back into the world (as well as Mordremoth’s) and that’s why we’re having overflowing ley lines (Current Events).

ugrakarma.9416:

In fact, the wiki or lore never put much emphasis on the honor factor in Balthazar, but a “suspicious” and violent God. This is not uncommon in Greek-style narratives of Gods.

Gods who do not mind lying or cheating even their own devotees.

It was Balthazar who urged humanity to engage the other races in battle and claim the world for themselves, believing the other races would fall easily.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balthazar

Untrue. GW1 definitely colored Balthazar as an honorable god. Even that line you quote isn’t lacking honor or being suspicious in of itself – not just because lack of context, or Balthazar’s line of thought, but because urging war with hostile races such as the charr is not necessarily bad, and he didn’t advocate the slaughter of other races, but to rule them.

Though Balthazar was more prone to violence than others, he was remorseful when he unfairly killed a mortal in rage and just about all of his Eternals that talk about Balthazar talk about honor in combat. Even the Zaishen Order, which in GW1 were solely for following Balthazar (and had expanded by GW2, despite their lack of appearance beyond a handful of no-longer-present LA ambient NPCs, to include other aspects of honor and combat in the other races), upheld defense of the weak against malicious forces and combat by honorable rules (aka PvP).

The first time Balthazar was presented as anything less than honorable (albeit prone to violent solutions of problems and having bad tempers) was from Gixx during the Durmand Priory Claw Island arc. But Gixx has equally showed that he doesn’t know much about the Six Gods either.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

EDIT:

You’re forgetting about when we fought him after unveiling his illusion in the first instance.

I’d hardly call breakign that illusion as “soloing” anything as we have kas-jory, taimi, dragon minions and security golems aiding – and then once the ilusion itself is broken he just abandons it throws a speech grabs device and tell the henchmen to do the work for him and bails out anyway – which means no direct confrontation here either

so the statements of us suddenly soloing balthazar still do not hold any groudn really

I don’t know why you’re quoting me about the OP’s comment of “soloing a god”.

Because I never said we solo’d a god. In that instance you quoted me, I was correcting a person who claimed we never fought Balthazar directly. We certainly did, and we had three allies at first followed by an army of asura and golems.

I also stated, in earlier posts as well as the one you partially quoted, that Balthazar was no longer of god-like levels, as that is a plot point from start to finish.

Cristalyan.5728:

These small “issues” makes me wonder if the initial lore team (or lore writer) was replaced. Because, it is evident that nobody on the lore team took into consideration how hilarious is to threaten Balthazar with the fire he gave to us :-)

The “narrative continuity” developers from GW1 (Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubbs) had stopped being in the spotlight since GW2 released; Jeff Grubbs even left quite some time ago. Ree, I believe, still works at ArenaNet but we haven’t heard anything about what she’s doing there since 2013.

The lead writer, Bobby Stein, had been with the company since Prophecies I believe, and IIRC the main writers of Prophecies and Factions plots/lore left before/during Nightfall, and the current “narrative continuity” developers (Angel McCoy and Scott McGough) had been in position since Season 1 (take that as you will for their quality).

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Idon’t think we can rule out planning Joko to be the mystery client all along. There was a lot of chatter, before GW Beyond was canceled, that the next chapter would be centered on him and Elona.

last time I checked the “canceled” product was codenamed “utopia”?

with GW Beyond being a colelctive name for all those “additional” storylines meant to lead up the GW into GW2? [War in Kryta, Keiran Thackeray x Gwen arc, don’t remember if there were more of it]

There were three Beyond arcs finished (War in Kryta, Hearts of the North, and Winds of Change), and they had written out a third plot focused in Elona due to be made for 2013, but with GW2’s release they had canceled it and stopped everything beyond maintenance on GW1; there were also plans (from the very beginning) to do an Ascalon arc (focused on the founding of Ebonhawke) which put on hold for Hearts of the North and Winds of Change once the leadership of the GW1 Live Team had transferred from Linsey Murdock to John Stumme.

Utopia was a campaign that was canceled for production of Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2, long before Beyond was an idea in the developers’ minds.

DarcShriek.5829:

As your link points out Mantids did not only live in Cantha. They also lived in the charr homelands.

True, some did (and I had momentarily forgotten about those annoying handful of bugs), not many though. But the one that (IMO) resembles the destroyers the most is the Mantis Mender which was Canthan only. Though I suppose that’s just too hard to tell.

Still worth the question, given how much more prominent the mantids were in Factions over the handful in the charr homelands, and we know that Primordus tunneling could have gone far outside continental Tyria in over 200 years (especially since tunnels made by the dredge already led to the Echovald Forest, where mantids were most common).

Colin said it in a slip of the tongue manner, IIRC, and he was the only one who ever gave the implication (or outright statement) that they were the same being.

As to using the statue of Melandru: that’s one singular case, and it is the very same pastkeeper overseeing the shrine at that statue which says that she is dead.

@Corax: I can’t think of any instance where Balthazar or his followers talk about zealotry. I caught the end of that merc conversation (I really wish they’d make those lines show up in the chat box because it’s hard to catch them when you don’t know where the speakers are), but devs did state that he intended to use the full White Mantle (never explaining why) and hadn’t anticipated Caudecus not following him (despite instantly calling him a heretic, apparently). A letter in the mercenary camp said that the mercenaries were ordered to imprison the White Mantle to prevent an uprising when they figure it out that he wasn’t really Lazarus.

But yeah, why keep the Lazarus disguise indeed. Only explanation I can see would be to have Marjory return and have a grand reveal via conflict all the same. Which is bad writing, tbh, because you’re ignoring realism for rule of cool.

Given the tone, I’m sure that is using the phrase as in it’s beginning to bore him. Not that he’s exhausted from the very brief fight.

And I would find it unlikely that magic he absorbed would so easily deplete itself so that he’d be incapable of performing the same act months later. TBH, it’s more likely that he didn’t actually intend to kill Marjory but wanted to send a message of “don’t mess with me anymore.”

One may note that they finally added a new destroyer model (to make a grand total of 5 destroyer models in GW2; 9 if you differentiate between fire colors). But what’s most notable is that these two new champions are rather unique in their appearance. Though they use the adult wyvern frame, their appearance is very insectoid.

This combined aspect makes them strongly resemble the mantids of Factions.

This is particularly interesting because of the nature of destroyers’ creations. Though they are created from rock and lava (as opposed to being corrupted beings like most other dragon minions), they are shaped in mimicry (and mockery) of existing races.

Does this mean that Primordus, in his years of tunneling, had accessed Cantha?

Manimarco Devil.1790:

1. Was Balthazar impersonating Lazarus the entire time or was he the “fake aspect” that Caudecus gave Xera to ensure the real Lazarus did not return.

From my understanding, he was impersonating Lazarus – based on Bauer’s journals, Balthazar appeared before Bauer even before the second raid had taken place (thus before Xera could perform the ritual to try to bring back Lazarus). Balthazar would not have been taking on power at the end of the third raid, as that ritual was meant to restore Lazarus so unless Balthazar just sat and watched then teleported in at the exact right moment with the right flair (something that’d be hard to do, especially when it’s unclear Lazarus wouldn’t have resurrected as he had in the past without all his aspects), he couldn’t have done so.

We do not know where Lazarus’ four aspects are… and we cannot even be certain that the ritual even failed. Lazarus could still be out there.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

2. If Jormag is dead/dormant, what happens to the Norn? After all they had some prophecy about whoever broke the tooth could defeat Jormag. (Also did anyone else not find it annoying the Norn aren’t going crazy and mobilizing the moment they saw the dent in the tooth?)

Presumably we’ll find out next episode. The end of episode 5 talked about talking with Braham so… we’ll likely be going to the Shiverpeaks in Episode 6 and something will happen to draw us to the Crystal Desert.

And if you talk to Taimi at the end of the last instance, she says that the norn have been celebrating non-stop since Braham broke the tooth while Braham (as said in episode 4) takes an exploratory team (dubbed Destiny’s Edge) up north to see what damage they could do to Jormag.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Balthazar current state is ridiculously weak by any God standards. We have two Gods to stack him up against.

Balthazar’s weakened state is actually part of the lore. This isn’t really a discrepancy between lore and game, as it’s a plot point. Balthazar had been weakened by an unknown group. This is the entire purpose of Balthazar’s return to Tyria – he’s after power. First from the bloodstone, then from the Elder Dragons.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

*Abaddon is the other severely weakened and chained God we have faced. He has been tormented and broken for ages that he doesn’t even have a real body anymore. He is probably the lowest point of a former God we have seen and yet current Balth appears to be weaker than him. I legit cannot tell if that is the real impression we should be getting or if Anet just had to weaken the encounter by that much because of in-game unskillful-ness. I mean atleast give his dog a bigger model or something…

Actually, Abaddon would be greater than Balthazar’s current state because Abaddon had spent the entirety of 1,075 years regaining power slowly, and had been greatly empowered by Varesh’s three rituals

We could only ever even face off against Abaddon in the first place because of the five gods’ blessing, and could only defeat him because of the chains Balthazar had forged. Without either, we would never have stood a chance.

On top of that, keep in mind that while physically weakened due to chains and god blessings, Abaddon was reshaping the very world of Tyria while still chained up. That is insane power there, far greater than even the Elder Dragons who can only reshape things around them let alone in another plain of existence.

Furthermore, it’s heavily hinted that Balthazar had lost his divinity – putting him in the same state as Dhuum (usurped but not killed like Abaddon was), but where Dhuum regains power from nearby deaths Balthazar had to absorb bloodstone magic and later Elder Dragon magic. So even ignoring combat capabilities, Abaddon would be greater just by the fact he was still a full fleshed god.

Theoretically, Dhuum as he just broke free and Balthazar after absorbing a portion of two Elder Dragons’ magic and one full bloodstone would be on par. And we never fought that Balthazar.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

*Why does the God of War need mercenaries and Inquest to help him when he can just walk into Divinity’s Reach and have the whole city bowing to him? Regardless of his current power level, he is still one of the Six and would be able to break off a large portion to do his bidding.

I want to know this myself.

The whole “pretending to be Lazarus” on top of “hiring mercs/using White Mantle” is more than just a little odd. We know what he was doing with them, but why go after those and not use his faithful, if he’s as uncaring about the world as he claims to be?

perilisk.1874:

Ogwom.7940:

I believe that we will get the FoW in a raid form, since we seem to be heading in that direction from the Bastion of the Penitent.

• Deimos teleports us to another realm which could be a shadowy version of FoW.
• Deimos and Saul are shadow versions (completely black) of themselves when in the realm.
• Early concept art of Deimos depicts him having 6 eyes (Abaddon was allied with Menzies, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature)
• Before fighting Deimos, Glenna will tell you that the area in that part of the prison feels like you are “touching the skin of Tyria” and “as if this place is the edge of our place”.
Maybe it is part of Menzies influence/corruption seeping into Tyria, similar to that of Abaddon (view of Istan from Abaddon’s Gate outpost).

As far as out-of-game logic is concerned, the name Menzies always sounded to me like it was invented by combining “Mars”, “Enyalio”," and “Ares” — i.e., cultural touchstones for gods of strife and bloody slaughter, moreso than just, defensive war.

Deimos is, in mythology, the son of Ares/Mars (and a moon of the planet Mars). So, there’s that.

But why would the mursaat employ a follower/minion of Menzies to torment Saul?

Most likely, Deimos was just a standard torment demon which had once allied themselves with Abaddon.

(Side note: Six Eyes is a very common theme throughout GW1; from jade armors to abaddon to dryders, and even some titans had six eyes; it seems that some artists at ArenaNet views “six eyes” as “very demonic and evil”)

Ogwom.7940:

Balthazar may have also recruited souls/ghosts from the Soul River of Spirit Vale to become Eternals.

The river of souls in Spirit Vale is a very recent (read: post-Mordremoth’s death) development which is just the movement of the many thousand souls killed atop of the Maguuma Bloodstone ripped free from the explosion of magic upon Mordremoth’s death.

No relation to any of the gods or the Eternals, who were the souls of faithfuls of Balthazar back in GW1.

Dragon energies are only corruptive when the Elder Dragon actively choses such. Given that Primordus (and likely Jormag) were incapacitated by the machine, they wouldn’t have corrupted even a mortal.

Also take note that we take in a bit of both Primordus’ and Jormag’s energies in order to fight Temur and Tegan, so the magic isn’t naturally counteractive with itself, just to the Elder Dragons themselves (and potentially their minions given the destroyer wipeout).

I honestly wouldn’t call Jennah’s capability “god-like”. More than your standard human for sure, but not on par to a god – it wasn’t even as much as what Balthazar showed, really, since he wiped out 20-some White Mantle (and destroyers in another instance) in one go.

And no human who used an object to obtain more power ever changed physically, with the exception of the few humans who embedded bloodstone shards into their body (Matthias and Caudecus).

And nothing in this instance has implied that it was the Elder Dragons who weakened Balthazar – I don’t get why people keep thinking that.

Rather than saying Jennah is a goddess or is Lazarus or whatever, it’s far more likely that Jennah has the Scepter of Orr with her, as we know that Livia had obtained it but no longer did by Sea of Sorrows (could have given it to royal family), or that magical defenses were built into the city to allow a perpetual giant dome to protect it from a siege (it was, after all, built after another city was sunk beneath a tidal wave).

And if there’s a bloodstone within DR (again, another unfounded, unsupported theory) that would be enough to let Jennah do what she has done since Xera did more with less access to a bloodstone.

While there are clear similarities, there’s also a fatal difference:

Mellaggan was killed by the krait.

Now one may argue that Melandru cutting ties could be seen by the quaggan as the goddess dying, however, Melandru would have left the world in Year 0 and stopped communication in year 1075 AE. The krait came into quaggan territories only 50 years ago. There’s a 200 year gap for Melandru to have gone silent if Mellaggan were the same as her.

And if she’s only gone silent, why say she’s dead with such certainty?

Based on his dialogue throughout, especially at the end and the fact he was absorbing the Elder Dragons’ magic (as clarified in the story journal entry), it’s pretty clear his goal regarding Primordus from the get-go was to take his magic and nothing else.

Amaimon.7823:

chronologically speaking, when did Joko even have the chance? I mean, he was released during Nightfall, right after which the heroes move back to tyria to investigate the earthquakes. All this time Joko should’ve been focussing on reclaiming the Bone Palace and rebuilding his forces, I can’t think of a window of time for him to go to the Maguuma to trick Zinn into making golems to kill world leaders.. I mean, it would help agenda for world domination, but I don’t think he would’ve moved that far ahead when he only just got his palace back

Assuming he didn’t just send a proxy agent to do the deal with Zinn for him and that he interacted with Zinn directly, there would have been plenty of time. The PC of GW1 had done a good handful of helping Joko re-consolidate his forces, and three years passed before Eye of the North even occurred. With the work we did, that would have been enough to make a short business trip or two (especially if he also went to recruit some Orrian undead that remained – would explain their entire disappearance after Prophecies).

So there was a span of 1 year (the time between EotN and WiK) in which he could have gone up north or sent someone up north.

And don’t forget that Joko had mastered the junundu wurms as well, so he had those at his disposal as well – I’d bet they’d make travel faster if they go through the Crystal Desert, Scavenger’s Causeway, and Orr.

Side note: Whoever said Joko cares about world domination? Like I’ve said, until this, we’ve never seen or heard of any indication that Joko cared about anything beyond the borders of Elona. I could easily see R.O.X. and P.O.X. being attempts to divert attention from himself by targeting people he doesn’t care about.

EdwinLi.1284:

Well it goes back to more GW1 lore again….

Yes I am… fully aware of everything you mentioned. Except, of course, for a couple mistakes…

Also, I’m pretty sure you mean “Rata Sum” not “Rata Novus” since Novus was an isolated city built after the events of GW1 Beyond content (thus well after the M.O.X., R.O.X., P.O.X., N.O.X. incidents).

However, said mistakes:

EdwinLi.1284:

This attracted the attention of a lot of people from all the countries due to how advance Asuran technology was such as Nicholas the Traveler.

It should be noted that Nicholas only began traveling again well after the R.O.X. situation.

More importantly:

EdwinLi.1284:

Nicholas the Traveler revealed that Zinn created NOX, ROX, POX, and MOX as the first generation of Golems that would use Ruby Djinn Essences to power them which is what gave MOX his Dervish abilities as a Hero in GW1. Of course where Zinn got his supply of Ruby Djinn Essences was unknown but now we got our answer being Joko supplying him with it from Elona.

Two issues: Firstly, the dialogue Nicholas said was this:

“Have you ever heard of the great artificer Zinn? Well, he has me out here searching for a Ruby Djinn Essence. I don’t know why, but for some reason I empathize with the little guy. The last time we met he was muttering about running out of something, and he was fretting about the power core redesign of his latest construct. I’m not entirely sure what the Ruby Djinn Essence has to do with it, or what a “power core” even is, but I figured I’d help anyway. You’ll let me know if you find one before I do, won’t you?"

That dialogue has no indication of having anything to do with the *.O.X. golems from GW1, as “his latest construct” which utilized the Ruby Djinn Essence would be none of the golems we met in GW1. And even less is stated about what gives M.O.X. his dervish abilities; all we know of M.O.X. that makes him unique is that he utilizes two power cores instead of one unlike the other golems of that era (it should also be noted that golem dervishes is far from unusual and that Ruby Djinns have nothing in relation to dervishes (being elementalists themselves)).

Secondly, what Joko would have supplied was described as “a custom power crystal”. And the Ruby Djinn Essence… is not a power crystal. And even if the Vabbians had heard of the asura (the only citable source I can find on a short search of non-Tyrians talking about asura was the N.O.X. quest and my own recollections), Joko had no (known) living contacts beyond the PC so unless the PC had traveled back to the Desolation to talk to Joko about current events, he would have needed to either obtain some living contacts, or send undead infiltrators into trading cities to learn of the asura.

All the same, this is still the very first time we’ve ever seen or heard Joko caring what happens beyond Elona’s borders.

EdwinLi.1284:

Nicholas the Traveler also revealed that the Gwen Doll he sold was powered from inside one of these Ruby Djinn Essence Golems.

Uhh… no, it just said: “Powered from the inside by one of Zinn’s magical micro golems.”

Type of power source never mentioned.

You’re taking one small line VASTLY out of proportion, and treating it as if every single power core Zinn ever used was powered by Ruby Djinn Essence, when the line is rather talking about new alternatives (like the Saurian Bone dialogue from Nick).

Interesting. I would not have pinged Joko as the mysterious benefactor.

This raises a couple questions (how he knew of Zinn and the asura, how he got that powerstone used in R.O.X. and what, exactly, it was) and adds in a very important new point about Joko: This is the first time players are told that Joko had any interest outside of Elona.

Zephyr Sanctum is permanently in the game. It’s the wreckage of Crash Site 1 and Ship’s Fall

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I would say that you do not have to use a Dragon’s weakness to kill one. While Zhaitan is a good example of where we probably didn’t use his weakness to kill him, Kralkatorrik is another example. The original plan that Destiny’s Edge had to kill him was for Rytlock to drive one of Kralkatorrik’s own spines into the dragon’s heart. Yes, Glint had one.

One could argue that Kralkatorrik’s own weakness is his own hardened body but that’s just continuing the trend used throughout Edge of Destiny of “the enemy kills itself” / “using the enemy against itself is how to win”.

But basically, your first sentence is correct. You do not have to use an Elder Dragon’s weakness to kill it – it’s just the “easiest method”.

It’s hard to say where episode 6 will take us. They pretty much closed off all plots tied to episode 5 within the episode itself, leaving no hints of where we’re going next.
Where episode 1 ended with a note of Primordus being active, and episode 2 began with a note of Jormag becoming active, and episode 4 ended with a note of Lazarus being a fake, episodes 3 and 5 have held no real hint to where things are going.

Aside from Braham marching north against Jormag.

But I don’t see how that ties to the Crystal Desert – and given the most recent leaks, they’re unlikely to be fake unless someone spent a hell of a lot of time for the sake of a prank.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

I suspect that we will unmask multiple Gods in Episode 6(namely Melandru who’s hinted to be allied with Balthazar due to the vine that helped him distract us and Grenth).

The vine was a re-used prop of Mordremoth’s, but the map hints that it’s the druids using them, as the druids there are hostile and trying to expel people (the vines also have a tendency to target asura, and if you listen to M.O.X. in the home instance or Zinn’s holorecordings, we learn that Zinn and the Novus survivors began trying to terraform the area which angered the druids greatly and in turn the druids wiped out the asura).

Balthazar lost his godhood based on his dialogue in the final instance, so it’d be weird if we see multiple gods in Tyria (and stranger if they’ve suffered similar fates).

As for the rest of your post: I honestly cannot tell if you’re being sarcastic and mocking at all the tinfoil hat theorists that popped up with Balthazar’s return, or if you’re serious.

cptaylor.2670:

It would be funny if the Avatar of the Pale Tree was Melandru, or even Caithe as she’s always been secretive and seemed to take high interest in the egg.

“We don’t know the Pale Tree’s origins….”

“Turns out, they’re minions of Mordremoth.”

“Turns out, they’re actually the goddess Melandru who has zero connections to the Elder Dragons, so why the hell was Mordremoth able to brainwash sylvari again?”

Yeah, that’d be stupid.

cptaylor.2670:

It would definitely be a twist if all of them were disguised this entire time.

Sure, a twist, but an utterly stupid one given that people had been searching for them for ages and found no trace of the unique divine energy readings that barely still exist in places of former holiness.

I doubt that when people can separate “divine magic” from “everyday magic” and are actively scouring the world and the Mists for gods, that the gods could stay hidden.

Natto.5819:

a – There more other giant races that had access to powerful magics. I think this was said in the Jotun storyline.

Thrulnn the Lost is lying on many accounts. The Six never favored them nor did they ever worship them, and the jotun did not fall from power due to confusion from losing magic but rather their loss of magic was caused by civil wars where they targeted their own scholars and sages.

Natto.5819:

b – Thank you for reminding me about how powerful Queen Jenna is. That is more proof she is not human.

I guess that makes Lord Odran, Sybetha, and Sorcerer Lord Kree who did “impossible” things also not mortal.

Nothing says that what Jennah did is impossible for a human. Given the fact that the raid bosses do greater or equally great things, like Matthias altering the local weather spontaneously or Xera permanently reshaping an entire castle. Or how about Palawa Joko.

There’s dozens of “legendary spellcasters” who did near improbable feats while being mortals.

That isn’t to say Jennah doesn’t have help from something, but there are many more explanations than “she is not who she says she is”.

Natto.5819:

c – With your thinking, then a White Mantle Elementalist should have been able to cast a city wide Meteor Shower if they wanted to destroy Divinity Reach.

You’re confusing “abilities of a powerful individual” with “standard average of power”.

The average person is an idiot, but this doesn’t mean geniuses are non-humans.

Natto.5819:

But again, the human gods didn’t want humans to have access to so much magic, so Lyssa wouldn’t grant Queen Jenna that much magic. Looking at all things lore, the only explanation for her power is that she’s a god herself.

Says nothing ever. What the gods didn’t want was wars caused by greed over obtaining more magic – something they failed miserably given that the Guild Wars often occurred for power over the bloodstones.

WinterTwister.7046:

Why do people in this thread think we soloed Balthazar..?
We fought his hounds. Balthazar never fought us. The player character, after fighting the hounds, told Balth to stop what he was doing and fight us.

You’re forgetting about when we fought him after unveiling his illusion in the first instance.

That’s what most people refer to, I believe, when he tried to kill Marjory but couldn’t (despite instantly killing dozens of White Mantle at the end of episode 1).

But, as has been established, Balthazar’s weakened in that point of time. As he himself admits later.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

(The wild card is what we experienced in the instance. If it wasn’t just the destroyers near us who died, but all destroyers, everywhere? And the same thing happened to the icebrood? There might suddenly be a lot of free real estate up north.)

I’m actually a bit curious about this:

Why did those destroyers suddenly die? Both mordrem and risen have remained after the deaths of their Elder Dragons, one being the death via weakness like Primordus and Jormag was being threatened by, and Primordus was only paralyzed at the time of all those destroyers’ deaths.

The Greyhawk.9107:

That would beg the question of why. Why would minions go inactive when their dragon is merely asleep but stay active when said dragon is dead?

Nothing actually has told us that their minions went inactive when the Elder Dragons slept. It could have been a centuries long war of attrition against them every time, until only a single champion lying in wait (their herald like the Great Destroyer) remained.

The Eye of the North manual even mentions destroyers as being a very real and current threat in the Depths, even before the Great Destroyer rose with an army in masse. So for all we know, those herald champions never did hibernate too (except Drakkar, being encased in ice and all) but simply waited patiently, acting only enough to not draw attention.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Ehh, that’s not what I’m getting, maybe you and I are just seeing different posts (literally, not figuratively).

I am VERY critical of the ‘reveal’ and the character reaction to the reveal (read: the first instance).

But I am VERY intrigued and enjoying of Balthazar’s character development (read: the final instance).

I kind of have the view of “it started horrid, but ended great”.

Feanor.2358:

Actually scale isn’t the only real difference. The real difference is motivation. Fights are fought for personal reasons, while wars are fought for abstract ideas like territory, ownership, property, religion and so forth. You’re giving an example of a personal motivation, a reason to go in a fight, not a war.

Territory and defense against an invasive army are far from abstract.

I would have to argue on the side that there can be honor in war – this is more so in cases of fiction, where we have a definite evil factor and the war is a “battle of good versus evil” as opposed to “a battle between gray and gray” like we so often get in reality.

For example, the war against Zhaitan is very much not a thing about abstract and can be considered honorable to fight in – Zhaitan wanted to kill and enslave the world, so fighting against him, without seeking to usurp his power, is defending not only the self but those who Zhaitan would target (read: everyone). That’s a noble cause, and would be “honorable” in war.

But when you get things like WWI, that’s not honorable on anyone’s side, really, and even more recent wars like the Gulf War and the like get even more muddier.

perilisk.1874:

The human gods (including the fallen ones) all seem to be the same type of being, just like the Elder Dragons, despite their differences, inhabit a shared category. It isn’t clear if that’s true of the others you mention, or if they even exist as actual beings, rather than just sacralized concepts. Same for spirits of the wild, etc.

I would not consider the fallen gods of the Six pantheon to still be gods. They are demi-gods at best, mortals at worst.

perilisk.1874:

Also Mellaggan is a Quaggan nature goddess. I.e., Mel andru + Qu aggan . Even if the Quaggan insist otherwise, it’s most likely a (probably somewhat tongue-in-cheek) adoption by the Quaggan of a human deity, sort of like Badazar.

Except that there’s nothing to really support this beyond human scholar claims (and we have a long standing history of scholars – human, asuran, charr, or otherwise – making similar claims that are downright false, like “grawl are ancestoral cousins to humans” that charr scholars claim). Mellaggan and Melandru, while having similarities, are about as much of “the same” as Melandru and Mordremoth.

Mellaggan is specifically the goddess of the “bounty of the sea”, which has a very specific meaning. Melandru is the goddess of nature and earth.

Basically, Mellaggan is a lot more specialized in her patronage, and is more specifikitteno Tyria (like Zintl and Ameyalli) rather than general concepts like the Six Gods

Natto.5819:

Queen Jenna’s power can’t be explained legitimately in lore. No human has that much magical powers. The only explanation is that she’s not human, leading me to believe she is a human god in disguise. Mesmers have the power of illusion, so it’s easy for them to trick people. A god mesmer would be more powerful.

You’ve… not seen what Xera can do, have you? She easily outclasses what Jennah does a dozen fold, and she is 100% human.

Natto.5819:

Balthazar being weakened follows lore with the elder dragon gods sucking magic power from them when they woke up. That’s why he was so mad at them.

This comment has absolutely no lore backing at all. The gods left the world of Tyria over a thousand years ago, and the Elder Dragons only began waking up a couple centuries ago, and are incapable of taking magic from the Mists let alone beyond the Mists.

The human gods are not “weaker than they were in GW1”. Balthazar alone has been weakened. There is nothing to even imply the other gods were weakened.

And there’s nothing to suggest that Jennah is anyone but who she is. Besides, it’d be very, very hard to replace royalty who’s being watched on a near 24/7 basis.

Valmir.4590:

Something tells me that Balthazar has been ousted by Menzies or another entity who defeated him and claimed the role of God of War, but in a not honourable way, hence precipitating him toward his current actions. At least, it would make sense of his behaviour.

This is my theory too. His line “They abated me, they dimmed might light… But now they will see me.” indicates a loss of godhood as well.

Whether it was Menzies+Dhuum coalition, or the Six Gods, or some new, unknown entity is unclear. But it does seem that Balthazar has been usurped but, like Dhuum and unlike Abaddon, survived his overthrow.

This event clearly demoralized Balthazar and made him loose faith in his old beliefs – not just about honor in combat, but also the worth of his followers’ lives (he was a very pro-human god in the past, and cared greatly about human life as shown with the story of Kaolai, the Scriptures of Balthazar in GW1, and the Orrian History Scrolls). He’s become clearly apathetic and hellbent on revenge, regardless of the cost to those around him.

There’s also the fact that Elder Dragons have to actively corrupt, so siphoning magic doesn’t result in corruption (just as when the Six Gods stole magic from Zhaitan to empower the bloodstones that didn’t result in all that magic turning folks into risen).

castlemanic.3198:

Except there’s the fact that the human gods existed on the face of tyria itself for a long period of time, and they had huge effects on the world at large (granting mortals magic and the Crystal sea turning into the crystal desert). So at one point in history, there were twelve beings with domains over Tyria. Then Abaddon was stuck in the realm of torment while his body recovered, and he partnered up with two more beings with divine touches, Dhuum and Menzies, each very powerful in their own right. Abaddon was going to bring about Nightfall, which would have affected all of Tyria directly until Kormir absorbed Abaddon.

So yeah, I don’t believe it’s anything more than a coincidence considering all the human gods lore. I don’t believe it takes 6 beings to control the magic of a world because there are clearly more than six at work (Dhuum and Menzies being powerful enough to be constant threats).

The Six Gods might have been on Tyria and influenced the physical world, but they would have had no influence on The All.

The theory that DarcShriek brought up (which I adhere to) is basically that the Six Gods are the equivalent of the Elder Dragons for the human homeworld. But where we’re killing off the Elder Dragons resulting in imbalance, they lost the world itself resulting in six orbs floating about pointlessly.

perilisk.1874:

There are at least 8 gods, even if some of them are exiled and not worshiped by humans. They still exist and are plenty powerful.

Well if we’re talking gods in general, there’s more than 8.

You have the Six Gods, and their last fallen god (Dhuum). You have Zintl and Ameyalli of the hylek, the Great Dwarf, Mellaggan, and finally Koda. At least 12 gods.